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Osho
The universe is within us. How to save yourself in the modern world
Chapter 1
Go serenely
Hear then the wisdom of the wise:
As far as possible, without giving way, be on harmony with all people.
Speak your truth calmly and clearly and listen to others, even the foolish and ignorant; they also have their own history.
Today we are entering one of the most beautiful worlds, the world of a small document called Desiderata. It is unusual because it has appeared and disappeared many times, so no one knows exactly who wrote it. Truth has the ability to appear again and again; Because of human stupidity, it is lost again and again.
Desiderata is apparently one of the oldest texts available today, but is copyrighted by the poet Max Ehrmann. In his book of poems the text is presented as a poem he wrote and was copyrighted in 1927 in America, although in the first edition the poet speaks of a legend according to which this small document was discovered on a plaque installed in St. Paul's Church in Baltimore when it was built in 1692 - but later the board was destroyed. It can no longer be proven whether it was inscribed on a plaque in St. Paul's Church or not. The legend has been preserved and continues to exist. It seems that Max Ehrmann had a vision - the document came to him as a vision. In fact, he was not its author, but only a conductor, a medium.
This happened with many other texts as well. This happened with Blavatsky’s “The Voice of Silence”: she is known as the author of this book, but this book is very ancient. She opened it in meditation, the book appeared to her.
Many parts of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra are also very ancient, and the same is true of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. Mabel Collins's A Light on the Path belongs to this category, as does Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.
I've looked at all of Max Ehrmann's poems, but none of them have the same quality - not one. If Desiderata were written by him, then many more poems with the same quality should have flowed in a stream. That did not happen. In fact, the Desiderata is so different from all his other poems that it is impossible to believe that they were written by the same person.
The same is true for Mabel Collins' Light on the Path. These are strange works. There is a possibility that they have always existed - appearing and disappearing from view again; truth invariably reveals itself... Whenever a sensitive soul, a receptive man appears, truth begins to flow through him again. And of course, the person thinks: “I’m writing this I».
It is because of this fact that the names of the authors of the Upanishads are unknown; no one knows who wrote them because the people who received them were very alert and aware. They were mystics, not only poets.
There is a difference between a poet and a mystic: when something happens to a mystic, he is perfectly aware that it is from above, that it is not from him. He feels great joy, he enjoys that he has been chosen as a guide, as a mediator, but his ego cannot claim it. Actually you become a mystic only after you have dropped the ego. The poet is full of ego - not always, but almost always. Occasionally, when he forgets his ego, he touches the same world as the mystic; but a mystic lives in this world. For the poet this happens occasionally as a glimpse, and since his ego is not dead, he immediately declares it his creation. But all the ancient seers knew about this.
It is known that the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, these three greatest sacred scriptures in the world, were not written by anyone. The Vedas are known as apaurushea– not written by any person. Of course, someone wrote them, but they are from God, from above, from some unknown source. The mystic becomes obsessed with them and dances to their tune. He is no longer himself - he is This. The poet occasionally has a glimpse of this, a distant glimpse.
In Sanskrit we have two words for poet; this is not the case in any other language, because only in this part of the world have they come to realize, very clearly realize, this fact. In Sanskrit one of the words is - kavi. Kavi this is precisely what “poet” means. Another word is rishi; rishi means "mystic poet". The difference is huge. The poet has a deep aesthetic feeling, he is very sensitive, he can penetrate to the very essence of things. He has a different way of knowing than a scientist. He doesn't analyze, he loves; his love is great, but his ego is alive. So when he looks at a rose flower, he comes closer to it than the scientist, because the scientist immediately starts analyzing the flower, and to analyze anything is to kill it. The very attempt to know is an attempt to kill.
Therefore, all the knowledge that science has is knowledge about dead things. Today, even scientists are beginning to realize this fact. When blood is taken from your body and analyzed, examined, it is no longer the same blood that it was when it was circulating in your body. Then she was alive, then she was an organic part of your life. She's not the same now. Just like your hand or your eye: when it is part of the organic unity of your body, it can see, but take it out and it is dead, it does not see. He is no longer alive, he is something else, he is a corpse.
The greatest scientists are beginning to wake up to the fact that everything we have learned so far is fundamentally wrong. We only know about the dead - we miss the living. That is why science cannot say that there is something in you other than the body, something more than the body. Science cannot say that you are more than the sum of your parts, and if you are not more than the sum of your parts, then you do not exist. Then you are just a machine - maybe a very complex one, but that doesn't matter. You are a computer, you have no soul, you are just a by-product, an external phenomenon. You have no awareness, you are just behavior.
Science reduces a person not even to an animal - to a machine, remember this. Gone are the days when scientists like Charles Darwin and others thought that man was nothing but another animal. Now Skinner, Delgado, Pavlov do not say that man is another animal - since there is no soul, no life, no consciousness - they say that man is another machine.
Religion says that man is more than the body, more than the mind, but science cannot believe this because of its very methodology. The way in which she tries to know things prevents her from going deeper than the material, deeper than the dead.
Therefore, the poet comes closer to the flower than the scientist. The poet does not analyze the flower, he falls in love. He experiences great joy, he enjoys the flower, and out of this joy a song is born. But he is still far from a mystic, a rishi. The mystic becomes one with the flower. The observer becomes the observed, difference disappears.
That's what happened one day.
Ramakrishna and several of his disciples were crossing the Ganges in a small boat. Suddenly, in the middle of the river, he began to shout:
- Why are you beating me?
The students were puzzled. They said:
– Paramahansa Deva, what are you saying? We, and beat you?!
Ramakrishna said:
- Look!
He exposed his back, and there were marks on it, as if someone had severely beaten him with a stick. Blood was oozing.
The students were perplexed. What happened? And then Ramakrishna pointed to the other bank: there were several people beating a man. When the disciples and the master reached the other bank, they approached this man and exposed his back - the marks were exactly the same as on the back of Ramakrishna, without any difference, exactly the same! Ramakrishna became one with the man who was being beaten. He was not an observer, he was not separate; he has become one with the observed.
This is the meaning of the English word empathy. The poet knows what sympathy is, the mystic knows what empathy is. When a mystic sings, his song has a completely different flavor, a different beauty, because it is not a distant glimpse of the truth - the mystic is within the truth, at its very core.
But there is a lot to understand here. It may be that the mystic will not be able to sing at all, as he becomes so one with the truth that he may forget to sing the song. This has happened to many mystics - they said nothing at all. It's like if you ask sugar... chances are sugar won't be able to tell it's sweet. To know the sweetness of sugar, you need to be different from it. The mystic becomes sugar.
Occasionally a mystic also turns out to be a poet. That's a coincidence. Whenever this happens - as in the case of Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Mohammed - something higher becomes available to us. But the mystic is not necessarily a poet; being a poet is a different talent. One can be a mystic without being a poet; you can be a poet without being a mystic.
When the mystic turns out to be a poet, the Upanishads are born, the Srimad Bhagavad Gita is born, the Koran appears. But this doesn't always happen. It often happened that the truth had to find its way through the poet, since there was no mystic at that moment.
This is exactly what happened with this small document - Desiderates. It seems that there was no mystic who could sing this song, and Max Ehrmann was chosen as the guide - but he is not a conscious person. He thinks he is writing the poem himself; This verse is not his, no one’s signature can be put under it. And if you read this little document, you will understand that it cannot come from a poet. It has the same quality as the Koran, the same quality as the Upanishads.
This document is also unusual because it says so much in such a small space. In essence, it consists of sutras - just a few hints. Nothing is said with certainty: only hints, fingers pointing to the Moon. The document is so small that after Adlai Stevenson's death in 1965 it was discovered that he intended to send Desiderata to your friends as a Christmas card. They can be printed on a small card, on a postcard, but they contain infinity - a drop of dew that contains all the oceans.
This text can be of great help to you on your journey, which is why I call it “Spiritual Guidance.” It starts like this:
Jesus told his disciples again and again, “He who has ears, let him hear. He who has eyes, let him see.” He said this so many times as if he believed that people had neither ears nor eyes. This is also my experience: you have everyone has there are eyes, but very few people are able to see. You everyone has there are ears, but rarely, very rarely, you find a person who is able to hear - because when you simply hear words, it is not hearing, and when you simply see some figures, it is not seeing. Until you understand the meaning, the content, until you hear the silence, which is the soul of words, you have not heard.
You need to listen in deep silence, in deep agnosia. Remember the meaning of Dionysius’ word “agnosia”: a state of not-knowing. If you know, then your very knowledge is a hindrance. You don't hear. That is why pandits, scholars, are not able to hear: they are filled with all sorts of nonsense, their mind is constantly chattering inside. Maybe they're reciting shastras, scriptures, but that doesn't say anything; everything that happens inside has no value.
Until you become absolutely silent - when not a single thought moves within you, when there is not the slightest ripple on the surface of consciousness - you cannot hear. And if you cannot hear, then whatever you think you hear will be wrong.
This is how Jesus was misunderstood, Socrates was misunderstood, Buddha was misunderstood. They spoke very clearly. It is impossible to improve upon the sayings of Socrates; his statements are very clear, almost perfect, as perfect as language can be. The Buddha's sayings are very simple - there is no complexity in them - but still misunderstanding arises.
Where does this misunderstanding come from? Why are all the great prophets Tirthankaras, have all the great enlightened masters in all eras been misunderstood? For the simple reason that people cannot hear. They have ears, so they think they can hear. They are not deaf, they have hearing organs, but between their ears there is a lot of noise, between their ears there is a mind that interprets what is said, compares, analyzes, argues, doubts. People get lost in all these processes.
Just one short word, and watch what happens to your mind - not even a word, just one sound. Here's a plane flying by... watch your mind. You can't just listen, you start thinking about many things. Maybe he reminded you of your own travels, of a friend who died in a plane crash, of someone you loved very much - so many memories associated with this person... and you are immersed in those memories. One memory follows another, and now you are no longer Here and now. You don't listen to the plane fly by. This plane simply launched a certain process inside you - a flow of thoughts, memories, desires arose. Perhaps it suddenly occurred to you, “Wouldn’t it be great if I had my own plane?” Or maybe you just thought: “They’re bothering me again! This noise distracts me. I was sitting in silence, and then this stupid plane flew in!”
It's not the plane that's bothering you, it's your own mind that's bothering you. It is the mind that considers it a nuisance, a disturbance, and calls it a stupid plane. If you don't call it anything, then nothing is bothered. If you just listen to sounds, you will find something amazing: they deepen your silence, they are not distracting at all. When they disappear, you descend into a valley of silence that is even deeper than the one you were in before.
Hence the first words in Desiderata:
Hear then the wisdom of the wise...
A strange beginning, especially for a Western poet, an American poet. This is how all Eastern sutras begin. There is only a slight difference, and it seems to be due to the fact that the medium is a Westerner. He could not accurately convey what was happening in his inner being.
All the great Eastern sutras begin with the word “now.” Athato brahma jigyasa. This is how the Brahma Sutras begin: “Now is the exploration of the Ultimate,” not “then,” but “now.” This is how the Bhakti Narada Sutras begin: Athato bhakti jigyasa, “Now exploring the world of devotion.” It's never "then", it's always "now". In fact, “then” does not exist, only “now” exists.
“There” does not exist, only “here” exists. You will never find “then” and “there” anywhere. Wherever you go, you will always find “now” and “here”. If it had come through a mystic, it would not have been “then”, it would have been “now”: “Listen Now the wisdom of the wise..."
And that makes more sense.
But the logical mind functions differently, and when you use the logical mind as a tool, it makes some changes: "then", "therefore"... "Now" is never part of the logical mind, "now" is part of the meditative mind. mind. Since Ehrmann is not a meditator or a mystic, he made a mistake with this word. He says:
Hear then the wisdom of the wise...
Just replace “then” with “now” and see how the quality completely changes: “Hark now to the wisdom of the wise...” - because there is no other time except “now”, and there is no other space except “here”. “Then” and “there” are part of our noisy mind. When the noise stops and the mind is dropped, what remains? Only Here and now.
Swami Ramtirtha often told a beautiful story.
There was once a very famous atheist who constantly spoke out against God. On the wall of his living room he wrote in large gold letters: “God is nowhere.” Then he had a child. And then one day he was playing with his child, who at that time was already learning to read. He couldn't read such a long word - "nowhere" - and divided it into two. The child read this sentence as follows: “God is now-here” (“God is here-and-now”). "Nowhere" was too long a word; he divided it into two: “now-here” (“here-and-now”).
This must have been a rare moment for an atheist. In fact, when you play with a child, you forget your seriousness, you forget your ideologies, you forget your religion, you forget your philosophy, you forget your theology. When you play with a child, you become meditative in a sense, and therefore playing with children has great value. When you play with a child, you become a child for a moment. Remember, Jesus said over and over again, “Unless you become like little children, you will not enter my kingdom of God.”
At that moment something happened. The child said, “God is here now,” and the father was taken by surprise. He heard this and, like his son, was in a playful mood. You cannot argue with a small child by saying, “There is no God.” Because he was playful, silent, joyful, this statement uttered by a child became something incredibly important, filled with enormous meaning, as if God was speaking through him.
The atheist looked at the wall differently for the first time. All his life he looked at this statement. It was never written there: “God is here-and-now,” it was always written there: “God is nowhere.” He never thought that "nowhere" could be divided into "here-and-now", that "nowhere" consists of "here-and-now". He experienced a transformation. It became almost a satori experience. He was no longer an atheist.
People were puzzled. They couldn't believe what happened because he had so much evidence against the existence of God and he argued it so convincingly. What's happened? When asked about this, he simply shrugged. He said, “I can understand why you look so puzzled. I'm at a loss myself. Ask this child - he did everything. When I heard this statement from him, something changed in me. Something was transformed in me when I looked into the eyes of a child. And I am now a different person, not only logically, but also existentially. Since then I began to see God Here and now. In the wind rustling in the trees, in the rain falling on the roof, I hear the sound of his steps, I hear his song. The birds are singing and this is a reminder to me that God Here and now. The sun is rising and it is a reminder to me that God Here and now. Now it is no longer a matter of argumentation, it has become my personal experience.”
But the mind is always going somewhere else. He never Here and now, he always there-and-then. The mind exists only in there-and-then. That's why Max Ehrmann missed it. He says: “Listen then...” “Then” looks more logical, but it is not existential. “Now” is existential, although it is very illogical – because you cannot grasp “now” with logic. The moment you think you have grasped it, it is already gone, it has already become the past. You may be in the now, but you cannot try to understand to know"Now". By the time you try to understand, it will no longer be there. It is like a continuously flowing river.
Heraclitus says: “You cannot step into the same river twice.” And I tell you: you cannot step into the same river even once, because the moment your foot touches the surface of the river, the water in the depths rushes past. When your foot plunges into the water, there is already another water on the surface - it quickly rushes past. By the time you hit the bottom of the river, so much water has flowed away that you haven't touched the same water even once!
And such is life: except change, nothing is permanent. Only change is eternal. This seems paradoxical; that's why I say it's illogical.
Hear then the wisdom of the wise...
A strange phrase: in fact, “the wisdom of the wise” seems to be a tautology. Of course, only the wise can have wisdom. What's the point of repeating this? Why say “wisdom of the wise”? Can the foolish also have wisdom? There is a very subtle point to be understood because there are so many knowledgeable people in the world, and a knowledgeable person gives almost the same impression as if he were wise, but still he is not. He explains himself exactly the same way. A scholar who has studied Srimad Bhagavad Gita all his life speaks the same language as Krishna. But when Krishna speaks, it is the wisdom of the wise, and when a scientist, a pandit, speaks, it is not the wisdom of the wise, it is the wisdom of the unwise. This is just knowledge, this is not wisdom at all. How can this be wisdom?
Remember the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is a counterfeit coin. Knowledge is easy and can be borrowed from anyone. You can go to the university, to the library, you can ask knowledgeable people, and you can accumulate it. It's very cheap. For it you do not need to undergo any transformation, you do not need to be reborn. You will remain as you are, and knowledge will accumulate. It will be added to you, but it will have no value because you will remain the same. In fact, it may even be dangerous. This will deceive others into thinking that you know. And if many people think you know, you may become self-deceived. You may also begin to think, “How can so many people be wrong? If they think I know, then I know.”
I heard one story.
A certain journalist died and went to heaven. Saint Peter opened the gates of heaven and said to him:
– Sorry, but our quota for journalists has been exhausted. We can only have twelve journalists in heaven, no more. Even these twelve almost never have work because there is no news here. Nothing happens!
What can happen in heaven? No riots, no rapes, no politicians, no government fall, no divorces, no murders. Nothing happens here! George Bernard Shaw defined news as follows: “If a dog bites a man, it is not news, but if a man bites a dog, then it is news.” Well, in heaven, who would bite a dog and why? First, where in heaven will you find a dog? And it will be almost impossible to find the person who bites the dog. So there are no newspapers there. Perhaps in the morning they simply hand out blank sheets of paper, the saints sit, look at these blank sheets and are very happy that nothing happened - and that’s good. Nothing is always better than something.
Therefore Saint Peter said:
- Please go to hell. There are thousands of journalists and hundreds of newspapers, and so much news!
But the journalist began to object, as journalists usually do. He declared:
- No. Please give me at least twenty-four hours. If I can convince any journalist to go to hell, then one position will become vacant and you can give it to me - otherwise I will go to hell. Just twenty-four hours.
Saint Peter realized that there was logic in this and agreed:
- Okay, you can try.
And the journalist tried. And journalists are specialists in lies. The truth is not their business, the truth cannot be their business, because the truth is very simple and very uncomplicated. You can't make any newspaper stuff out of it, there's nothing special about it, it's just what it is. And lies are very complicated, and you can make many stories out of them, you can constantly create newspaper materials, moving from one story to another. But you need lies as a basis, not truth.
The whole art of journalism is the art of lying in such a way that people think it is the truth. So he was an expert. He started spreading rumors. As soon as he appeared in heaven, he began to tell people: “Have you heard that a new newspaper is being created in hell, a very big project? An editor-in-chief is required with a huge salary and all benefits. Deputy editors needed, reporters needed.” And in twenty-four hours he started so many rumors on this subject that when he returned and asked St. Peter if some journalist had gone to hell, St. Peter closed the gates on him and said:
- You did it! Now you can't leave. All twelve escaped! And we should have at least one journalist in case something ever happens. So now I can't let you out.
The journalist was furious. He said:
“This is wrong, this is contrary to our agreement.” I only asked for twenty-four hours. I want to go to hell!
Saint Peter was surprised:
- Why? For what? After all, this is You spread these rumors. This is a complete lie, you made it up!
The reporter replied:
- Yes, I made it up - but there must be something in it, since twelve journalists believed it. There must be something to it! Perhaps it is just a coincidence that I came up with this, and at this very time a large newspaper was actually being created. I can't stay here! If twelve people believed it... great doubt arose in me. Maybe it wasn't a lie at all.
You can experience this in your own life. Tell a lie to a few people, and when they begin to believe it, you will, to your surprise, gradually, gradually begin to believe it yourself. That's why I say that many people live a lie, knowing full well that it is a lie, but only because so many people believe... how can so many people be wrong?
George Bernard Shaw once made a statement that he later denied. He was a wonderful man; his understanding was excellent in many respects. He said that all science is wrong. The Earth does not revolve around the Sun, on the contrary, the Sun revolves around the Earth - he stated this to his friend. Friend said:
- What nonsense are you talking about? What evidence do you have? Now science has completely proven the truth, and I cannot believe that a person like you - so smart, so modern - believes in such nonsense that the Sun revolves around the Earth.
Bernard Shaw said:
– Yes, the Sun revolves around the Earth. He has to because Bernard Shaw lives on Earth! My The Earth cannot revolve around the Sun.
That person remarked:
“But today almost the whole world, so many people, millions of people, believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Bernard Shaw replied:
“When so many people believe something, I always suspect it must be a lie.” Otherwise, how can so many people believe in this?
Very rare people have always possessed the truth. Only rarely does one come across a person who has the truth; The majority of people live in a lie, in a wide variety of lies. But if a lie is spread over centuries, it becomes the truth.
Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf says that the difference between truth and falsehood is only a difference in time, nothing more. Truth is a lie that has been spread over time, a lie is a new truth that will eventually become the truth if someone continues to spread it.
You believe in hell - have you ever thought that this is a lie? You believe in heaven - have you ever thought that it is a lie? You believe a thousand and one things without even thinking that each of them may be a lie, just a lie that other people have given you. It was given to you by people of authority - your parents, your teachers, your priests, influential people, those in power - and therefore you believe in it. “Such people cannot lie!” In reality, such people Always They lie, their entire power depends on lies. Truth is humble - not powerful. Lies become very powerful, they become very competitive. Every lie is a politician struggling, fighting, trying to prove: “I am the truth.”
Knowledge is nothing but lies that you have learned from other people. Remember that unless something is your own experience, it is a lie. Truth must be your personal authentic experience.
Buddha says: “Don’t believe just because I say so; believe only when you know. Do not believe because it is written in the scriptures; believe only when you know.”
And I also tell you that if you are a real seeker of truth, then you will not believe in knowledge. Knowledge is very superficial. You can talk about God without knowing anything about God, without having any taste of God. You can talk about love without having any experience of what love is - even a blind man can talk about light and explain to you the whole physics of light. This does not mean that he is not blind - he is still blind. These scholars, pandits, ayatollahs, imams and priests are all knowledgeable people. They pretend wise - they are not wise.
Until there is complete awakening, until the whole being becomes aware, until all darkness, all unconsciousness disappears, you are not wise. Knowledge is information, wisdom is transformation. Hence the meaning of the phrase:
Hear then the wisdom of the wise...
– not “knowing” -
Walk serenely amid the noise and haste and remember that in silence there can be peace.
A very significant sutra. This is how the seeker of truth begins his journey. The first is: go peacefully... don't make noise. Walk peacefully... don't raise a lot of dust. Not necessary.
Sufis say that if you really want to pray, pray in such a way that no one knows that you are a person of prayer. In the middle of the night, when even your wife is snoring, sit silently in bed and pray - so quietly that no one will know. Don't make a fuss.
The real man of prayer hides and prays, but the false man makes a lot of noise about it. In essence, the prayer of a false person is just noise and nothing more; He even goes to church screaming. In India, every temple has a large bell; he rings this bell so that all the neighbors know. And if there are a lot of people in the temple, then his prayer becomes very long; if there is no one, then he quickly finishes. What is the point? Nobody sees. If a photographer is present, then look how pious he is, how spiritual his face becomes! If reporters are present, he will really pray. You will see his humility, his simplicity. He will fall to the ground, he will roll on the ground, he will cry and sob - but these are all crocodile tears, because when no one is around, he doesn’t care at all.
I heard about a man who prayed to God every evening, saying only one phrase. He raised his eyes to the sky and said: “The same thing!” - and then crawled under the covers and fell asleep. What's the point of repeating the same thing over and over again every day? Is God not smart enough to understand “the same thing”? Once upon a time he really I prayed - what is the point of repeating the same prayer over and over again? Be that as it may, God already knows her. Just to remind him, “I’m praying,” he says, “Same thing.”
From a bird's eye view, my partner and I might have seemed like two black grains of sand stuck high on a slope among rocks, ice and snow. Our long route was coming to an end, and we were returning to camp, set up on a ridge sandwiched between the two largest ice sheets on the planet. Beneath the clear northern sky lay an expanse from the drifting ice of the Arctic in the east to the vast ice sheets of Greenland in the west. After a productive day and a long walk, we felt on top of the world when we saw this majestic sight.
However, suddenly the state of bliss came to an end, and all because the ground under my feet changed. We were crossing a strip of bedrock, and the brown sandstone gave way to a patch of pink limestone, which we knew was a sure sign that fossils might be found nearby. We had been looking at the boulders for several minutes when I noticed an unusual reflection coming from one of the melon-sized stones. My experience in the field taught me to listen to my inner voice. We came to Greenland to hunt for small fossils, so I got used to looking at rocks through a magnifying glass. It was a glittering white speck no larger than a sesame seed. I looked at the stone for a good five minutes, and then handed the find to Farish, my companion, to hear his authoritative opinion.
Farish froze, peering at the grain, and then looked at me with delight and amazement. Pulling off his gloves, he threw them high, about five meters, and squeezed me tightly in his arms.
Such an explosion of emotions distracted me from the absurdity of the situation: the discovery of a tooth the size of a grain of sand caused great delight! But we found what we had been looking for for three years, spending a lot of money, something that had repeatedly sprained ligaments in our legs: the missing link between reptiles and mammals, about two hundred million years old. Of course, our project was not limited to finding a single trophy. This little tooth is just one of the threads that connects us with antiquity. The Greenland rocks contain part of the forces that once shaped our bodies, our planet and even our Universe.
Finding connections with this ancient world is like discovering the original design in an optical illusion. We see people, stones and stars every day. But train your eyes - and familiar things will appear in front of you from an unusual perspective. If you learn to look at the world, then objects and stars will become for you a window into the past - so huge that it is almost beyond comprehension. In our common distant past, terrible disasters occurred, and they could not help but affect living beings.
How can a huge world be reflected in a small tooth or even in a human body?
I'll start by telling you how my colleagues and I first came to that mountain range in Greenland.
Imagine a valley stretching as far as the eye can see. And you're looking for fossils here the size of the period at the end of a sentence. The fossils and the vast valley are not comparable in size, but any valley will seem tiny in comparison with the surface of the Earth. Learning to look for traces of ancient life means learning to look at stones not as fixed objects, but as dynamic entities, often with an eventful history. This applies to our entire world and to our bodies, which are a “snapshot” capturing a specific moment in time.
Over the past century and a half, the tactics for opening sites for fossil hunting have changed little. In principle, there is nothing complicated here: we should find an area where stones of the age we are interested in lie on the surface, and those that are most likely to contain fossils. The less you have to dig, the better. This approach, which I described in my book Inner Fish, allowed me and my colleagues in 2004 to discover the remains of fish preparing to come to land.
As a student in the early 1980s, I joined a group that was developing new methods for finding fossils. Our task was to find the earliest relatives of mammals. Scientists found fossils of small shrew-like animals and their reptile relatives, but by the mid-1980s they had reached a dead end. The problem is best described by the famous joke: “For every missing link found, two new gaps are created in the fossil record.” My colleagues contributed to the creation of new gaps and were forced to fill them, including looking for rocks that were about two hundred million years old.
The discovery of new fossil sites was facilitated by economic and political developments: in search of sources of oil, gas and other minerals, many states stimulated the creation of geological maps. Therefore, almost any geological library has journal articles, reports and - which we always really count on! - maps of territories, regions and countries with a detailed description of the age, structure and mineral composition of rocks exposed on the surface. The challenge is to find the right card.
Professor Farish A. Jenkins, Jr. led the research group at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. Finding fossils is his bread and butter, or rather that of himself and his team, and they started their search in the library. Farish's colleagues from another laboratory, Chuck Schaff and Bill Eimeral, played a key role in this research. They used their extensive experience in geology to point out potential fossil sites and, importantly, trained themselves to spot small fossils on the ground. Chuck and Bill's work together often looked like a long, friendly discussion: one put forward a new hypothesis, and the other eagerly tried to refute it. If the hypothesis managed to survive, they brought it to the court of Farish, with his logic and scientific sense, for a final decision.
One day in 1986, during such a discussion, Bill saw on Chuck's desk a copy of the Shell reference book on Permian and Triassic sediments. Flipping through the pages, Bill came across a map of Greenland with a small shaded area of Triassic sediments on the east coast, lying at 72 degrees north latitude, approximately the latitude of the northernmost cape of Alaska. After studying the map, Bill stated that this was the place where the search should begin. The usual discussion ensued: Chuck argued that the rocks here were not the same, and Bill objected to him.
A happy accident allowed the dispute to end right there, at the bookshelf. A few weeks earlier, Chuck had been rummaging through the library trash and pulled out a reprint of the article “A Review of the Triassic Stratigraphy of Scoresby Land and Jameson Land in East Greenland,” written by Danish geologists in the 70s. Few people could then imagine that this work, miraculously saved from waste paper, would determine our lives for ten years to come. The discussion ended literally the minute Bill and Chuck looked at the cards in the article.
The graduate room was just down the hall, and as often happened, I stopped by to see Chuck at the end of the day. Bill was spinning around right there, and it was clear that they had just been arguing as usual. Bill handed me a reprint of the article. This was exactly what we were looking for. On the east coast of Greenland, opposite Iceland, there were deposits containing the remains of early mammals, dinosaurs and other treasures.
The cards looked unusual, even frightening. The east coast of Greenland is remote and mountainous. The names of the places are associated with the names of travelers of the past: Jameson Land, Scoresby Land, Wegener Peninsula. And some of them, as I reliably knew, died there.
Fortunately, the chores fell on the shoulders of Farish, Bill and Chuck. With a combined sixty years of field work behind them, they have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about conducting expeditions in a wide variety of conditions. But what experience could prepare us for the journey ahead? An experienced expedition leader once told me: nothing compares to your first trip to the Arctic.
During my first expedition to Greenland, I learned a lot, which was useful to me eleven years later when I started my own expedition to the Arctic. That first time I took with me to the land of slush, ice and eternal day leaky leather boots, a small old tent and a giant lantern, and in general I made so many mistakes that I smiled only when I repeated the motto I had invented: “Never do anything.” do it for the first time."
The most unpleasant episode of that expedition was associated with the choice of a place for camp: the decision had to be made quickly, right when we were inspecting the area from a helicopter. While the engine is running, the money, figuratively speaking, goes down the drain: the cost of renting a helicopter in the Arctic for an hour can reach three thousand dollars. With a paleontological expedition budget more geared toward a beat-up pickup truck than a Bell 212 helicopter, that means there's not a minute to waste. Finding ourselves over a place that, when studying the maps in the laboratory, seemed suitable for us to park, we quickly noted the elements that were important to us. There are a lot of them. You need a dry, flat area, located close to a water source, but at some distance from the sea to avoid encounters with polar bears. The site should be sheltered from the wind and located close to the rock outcrops that we are going to explore.
We had a good idea of the general layout of the area, having studied maps and aerial photographs, and so we found a wonderful little patch of tundra in the center of a wide valley. There were small channels here from which water could be taken. The place was dry and level, so we could easily set up our tents. In addition, from here there was a magnificent view of the ridge of snow-capped mountains and the glacier at the eastern end of the valley. But we soon realized our main mistake: there were no necessary rocks within walking distance.
After the camp was set up, we went out every day in search of stones. We climbed to the highest points of the area around the camp and tried to see through binoculars at least one of those rocky outcrops that literally caught our eye on the maps in the article that Bill and Chuck found. We were also guided by the fact that the stones - red sandstone - should have a characteristic color.
In search of red rocks, we left camp in pairs: Chuck and Farish climbed the hills to look for red rocks to the south, while Bill and I tried to see what was to the north. On the third day, both teams returned with the same news. About ten kilometers to the northeast a narrow reddish strip was visible. We spent the rest of the week discussing this exit and looking at it through binoculars. Sometimes, in the right light, it appeared to be a series of ridges, ideal for finding fossils.
It was decided that Bill and I would go to the stones. Since I had no idea what roads were like in the Arctic, I chose the wrong boots, and the trek turned out to be an ordeal: first we crossed fields of cobblestones, then small glaciers... but mostly we walked on mud. The liquid clay squelched obscenely every time we pulled our leg out of it. We left no traces.
For three days we searched for the road, but in the end we were able to find a reliable path to the desired stones. After a four-hour trek, the reddish strip visible from the camp through binoculars turned into a series of rocks, ridges and hills, consisting of the very stones we were looking for. If we're lucky, there might be fossils on the surface.
Now the task was to return here as quickly as possible with Farish and Chuck, reducing the transition time and saving maximum time for searching for fossils. When we returned as a team, Bill and I felt so proud, as if we were showing our guests a new home. Farish and Chuck, tired from the trek but excited by the anticipation of the search, did not even start the usual discussion. They methodically scanned the soil with their gaze.
Bill and I headed to a ridge about a kilometer away to see what awaited us further north. After a break, Bill began to look around in search of something interesting: our colleagues, bears or any other manifestations of life. Finally he said, “Chuck is down.” Taking out the binoculars, I actually saw Chuck crawling on all fours. To a paleontologist, this means only one thing: fossils.
We quickly walked there. Chuck actually found a piece of bone. However, our one-way hike lasted four hours, and now we were forced to return. Farish, Bill, Chuck and I were stretched out in a line about ten meters apart from each other. About five hundred meters later I saw something on the ground. This “something” shone with a familiar shine. Kneeling down as Chuck had done an hour ago, I saw it in all its glory: a wonderful piece of bone the size of a fist. There were other bones on the left, and more and more on the right. I called out to Farish, Bill and Chuck. There was no answer. I looked around and realized why: they were also on all fours. We found ourselves in a field strewn with broken bones.
At the end of the summer we returned to the laboratory with boxes of fossils, which Bill began to assemble like a three-dimensional puzzle. They were the bones of a creature about six meters long, with a row of flat, leaf-shaped teeth, a long neck and a small head. Judging by the anatomy of the limbs, it was a dinosaur, although not the largest.
Dinosaurs of this type, prosauropods, occupy an important place among paleontological finds in North America. In the eastern part of the continent, dinosaurs used to be found along rivers, highways and railways, that is, in places where rocks end up on the surface. The famous paleontologist Richard Swann Lull (1867-1957) of Yale University discovered the prosauropod in the quarries of Manchester, Connecticut. True, the stone block contained only the back part of the animal’s body. The saddened scientist learned that the block with the front section was included in the support of the bridge in South Manchester. Lull described only the back of the dinosaur. Only when the bridge was dismantled in 1969 were the remaining fragments also freed. Who knows what fossils are hidden in the depths of Manhattan? After all, the famous brown houses on the island are built from the same stones.
The hills of Greenland are formed by wide stone steps that not only tear up your boots, but can also tell you a lot about the origin of the stones. Hard layers of sandstone, almost as strong as concrete, emerge from beneath softer, brittle layers. Almost the same steps exist in the south: layers of sandstone, silt and shale stretch from North Carolina and Connecticut all the way to Greenland. These layers contain characteristic faults filled with sedimentary rocks. They indicate the location of ancient lakes in deep valleys that arose when the earth's crust cracked. The arrangement of ancient faults, volcanoes and lake sediments in these layers is almost the same as in the lakes of the modern East African Rift Valley (Victoria and Malawi): movement in the bowels of the Earth led to the splitting of areas of the surface, and rivers and lakes appeared in the resulting gaps. In the past, such rift chasms stretched along the coast of North America.
Our plan from the beginning was to search along these cracks. Knowing that fossils of dinosaurs and small creatures close to mammals can be found in the rocks of eastern North America allowed us to appreciate the significance of that reprint of a geological paper that Chuck discovered. This in turn led us to northern Greenland. Then, already in Greenland, we continued to follow the same thread for finds, like pigeons mincing for crumbs of bread. The work took three years, but the clues we found in the redflowers eventually led Farish and me to that icy ridge.
From the top of the ridge our tents looked tiny. The wind was rustling overhead, but the ledge of pink limestone on which Farish and I were sitting provided shelter, so we could easily see the find. Farish's jubilation confirmed my suspicion that the white speck on the stone was indeed a mammal tooth. Three tubercles and two roots: this is exactly how it should look.
Encouraged by the find, we expanded our search to East Greenland and found other mammal remains in subsequent years. It was a small, shrew-like animal half the size of a house mouse. It may not have been an amazing skeleton that deserved a special place in the museum, but its value lay elsewhere.
This was the skeleton of one of the earliest fossil creatures with our type of teeth: their cutting surface is formed by tubercles that meet at the junction of the upper and lower teeth, and the row is divided into incisors, canines and molars. The animal's ear also resembles ours and contains small bones that connect the eardrum to the inner ear. The shape of its skull, shoulders and limbs is also like that of mammals. It is likely that the animal had fur and other mammalian characteristics, such as mammary glands. When we chew, hear high-pitched sounds, or move our hands, we use parts of the skeleton that can be traced back to primates and other mammals back to the original structures of these small creatures that lived two hundred million years ago.
Stones also connect us with the past. Cracks in the earth - like the ones that led us to the fossilized remains of mammals in Greenland - have left their mark on our bodies. Greenland rocks are one page in a huge library that contains the history of our world. Before this little tooth appeared, the world had existed for billions of years, and two hundred million years have passed since its appearance. During this time, oceans appeared and disappeared on Earth, mountains rose and collapsed, and asteroids fell on Earth as it made its way through the solar system. Rock layers record changes in climate, atmosphere and crust over millions of years. Change is the normal order of things: bodies grow and die, species appear and disappear, every element and sign of our planet and Galaxy is subject to both sudden transformations and gradual changes.
Stones and bodies are “time capsules”, bearing the imprint of the great events that formed them. The molecules that make up our bodies arose as a result of cosmic events at the dawn of the solar system. Changes in the Earth's atmosphere have shaped our cells and our entire metabolism. Changes in the planet's orbit, the appearance of mountains and other revolutionary changes on the Earth itself - all this was reflected in our bodies, in our brains and in our perception of the world around us.
Like the life and history of our bodies, this book is structured along a timeline. Our story begins approximately 13.7 billion years ago, when the Big Bang created the Universe. Then we'll explore the history of our humble corner of the Universe and see what consequences the formation of the solar system, Earth and Moon had on our organs, cells and the genes they contain.
Current page: 1 (book has 16 pages total) [available reading passage: 9 pages]
Neil Shubin
The Universe is inside us: what do rocks, planets and people have in common?
Dedicated to Michelle, Nathaniel and Hannah
Prologue
I spend a significant part of my time looking at the rocks under my feet, and therefore I have developed a certain view of life and the Universe. I look for answers to questions that interest me about the origin of living organisms in the sands of deserts or in Arctic ice. This may seem strange to some, but those of my colleagues who peer into the light of distant stars and galaxies, draw maps of the ocean floor, or study the surface of the barren planets of the solar system are doing approximately the same thing. What unites our work are some of the most amazing ideas ever conceived by humanity—ideas about how we and our entire world came to be.
It was these ideas that inspired me to create my first book, “Inner Fish.” 1
Rus. transl.: Shubin N. The Inner Fish: The History of the Human Body from Ancient Times to the Present Day. M.: Astrel: CORPUS, 2010. – Here and below are the translator's notes.
Every organ, every cell, every piece of DNA in our bodies bears traces of the three and a half billion years of life on Earth. This story has shaped the shape of our bodies, but clues to it can be found in the imprints of ancient worms on rocks, in the DNA of fish, and in the thick algae at the bottom of ponds.
As I thought about the first book, I realized that worms, fish, and algae point us to other, even deeper connections, going back billions of years to a time when no life existed on Earth. The birth of stars, the movement of celestial bodies and even the appearance of day and night have left traces within us.
Over the past 13.7 billion years, as a result of the Big Bang, the Universe arose, stars began to appear and disappear, and our planet was formed from cosmic matter. Since then, the Earth has tirelessly revolved around the Sun, and seas and continents have appeared and disappeared on it. Numerous discoveries of the last century have confirmed the multibillion-year history of the Earth, the immensity of space and the humble position of man on the tree of life. All this new knowledge can raise a legitimate question: is it really the task of scientists to make people feel like small, insignificant creatures in front of the infinity of space and time?
But aren't we discovering a stunningly beautiful truth by splitting tiny atoms and observing galaxies, studying rocks on the highest peaks and in the deepest ocean trenches, and examining the DNA of all living creatures today? Within each of us lives the deepest history of all things.
Chapter 1
And everything started spinning
From a bird's eye view, my partner and I might have seemed like two black grains of sand stuck high on a slope among rocks, ice and snow. Our long route was coming to an end, and we were returning to camp, set up on a ridge sandwiched between the two largest ice sheets on the planet. Beneath the clear northern sky lay an expanse from the drifting ice of the Arctic in the east to the vast ice sheets of Greenland in the west. After a productive day and a long walk, we felt on top of the world when we saw this majestic sight.
However, suddenly the state of bliss came to an end, and all because the ground under my feet changed. We were crossing a strip of bedrock, and the brown sandstone gave way to a patch of pink limestone, which we knew was a sure sign that fossils might be found nearby. We had been looking at the boulders for several minutes when I noticed an unusual reflection coming from one of the melon-sized stones. My experience in the field taught me to listen to my inner voice. We came to Greenland to hunt for small fossils, so I got used to looking at rocks through a magnifying glass. It was a glittering white speck no larger than a sesame seed. I looked at the stone for a good five minutes, and then handed the find to Farish, my companion, to hear his authoritative opinion.
Farish froze, peering at the grain, and then looked at me with delight and amazement. Pulling off his gloves, he threw them high, about five meters, and squeezed me tightly in his arms.
Such an explosion of emotions distracted me from the absurdity of the situation: the discovery of a tooth the size of a grain of sand caused great delight! But we found what we had been looking for for three years, spending a lot of money, something that had repeatedly sprained ligaments in our legs: the missing link between reptiles and mammals, about two hundred million years old. Of course, our project was not limited to finding a single trophy. This little tooth is just one of the threads that connects us with antiquity. The Greenland rocks contain part of the forces that once shaped our bodies, our planet and even our Universe.
Finding connections with this ancient world is like discovering the original design in an optical illusion. We see people, stones and stars every day. But train your eyes - and familiar things will appear in front of you from an unusual perspective. If you learn to look at the world, then objects and stars will become for you a window into the past - so huge that it is almost beyond comprehension. In our common distant past, terrible disasters occurred, and they could not help but affect living beings.
How can a huge world be reflected in a small tooth or even in a human body?
I'll start by telling you how my colleagues and I first came to that mountain range in Greenland.
Imagine a valley stretching as far as the eye can see. And you're looking for fossils here the size of the period at the end of a sentence. The fossils and the vast valley are not comparable in size, but any valley will seem tiny in comparison with the surface of the Earth. Learning to look for traces of ancient life means learning to look at stones not as fixed objects, but as dynamic entities, often with an eventful history. This applies to our entire world and to our bodies, which are a “snapshot” capturing a specific moment in time.
Over the past century and a half, the tactics for opening sites for fossil hunting have changed little. In principle, there is nothing complicated here: we should find an area where stones of the age we are interested in lie on the surface, and those that are most likely to contain fossils. The less you have to dig, the better. This approach, which I described in my book Inner Fish, allowed me and my colleagues in 2004 to discover the remains of fish preparing to come to land.
As a student in the early 1980s, I joined a group that was developing new methods for finding fossils. Our task was to find the earliest relatives of mammals. Scientists found fossils of small shrew-like animals and their reptile relatives, but by the mid-1980s they had reached a dead end. The problem is best described by the famous joke: “For every missing link found, two new gaps are created in the fossil record.” My colleagues contributed to the creation of new gaps and were forced to fill them, including looking for rocks that were about two hundred million years old.
The discovery of new fossil sites was facilitated by economic and political developments: in search of sources of oil, gas and other minerals, many states stimulated the creation of geological maps. Therefore, almost any geological library has journal articles, reports and - which we always really count on! – maps of territories, regions and countries with a detailed description of the age, structure and mineral composition of rocks exposed on the surface. The challenge is to find the right card.
Professor Farish A. Jenkins, Jr. led the research group at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. Finding fossils is his bread and butter, or rather that of himself and his team, and they started their search in the library. Farish's colleagues from another laboratory, Chuck Schaff and Bill Eimeral, played a key role in this research. They used their extensive experience in geology to point out potential fossil sites and, importantly, trained themselves to spot small fossils on the ground. Chuck and Bill's work together often looked like a long, friendly discussion: one put forward a new hypothesis, and the other eagerly tried to refute it. If the hypothesis managed to survive, they brought it to the court of Farish, with his logic and scientific sense, for a final decision.
One day in 1986, during such a discussion, Bill saw on Chuck's desk a copy of the Shell reference book on Permian and Triassic sediments. Flipping through the pages, Bill came across a map of Greenland with a small shaded area of Triassic sediments on the east coast, lying at 72 degrees north latitude, approximately the latitude of the northernmost cape of Alaska. After studying the map, Bill stated that this was the place where the search should begin. The usual discussion ensued: Chuck argued that the rocks here were not the same, and Bill objected to him.
A happy accident allowed the dispute to end right there, at the bookshelf. A few weeks earlier, Chuck had been rummaging through the library trash and pulled out a reprint of the article “A Review of the Triassic Stratigraphy of Scoresby Land and Jameson Land in East Greenland,” written by Danish geologists in the 70s. Few people could then imagine that this work, miraculously saved from waste paper, would determine our lives for ten years to come. The discussion ended literally the minute Bill and Chuck looked at the cards in the article.
The graduate room was just down the hall, and as often happened, I stopped by to see Chuck at the end of the day. Bill was spinning around right there, and it was clear that they had just been arguing as usual. Bill handed me a reprint of the article. This was exactly what we were looking for. On the east coast of Greenland, opposite Iceland, there were deposits containing the remains of early mammals, dinosaurs and other treasures.
The cards looked unusual, even frightening. The east coast of Greenland is remote and mountainous. The names of the places are associated with the names of travelers of the past: Jameson Land, Scoresby Land, Wegener Peninsula. And some of them, as I reliably knew, died there.
Fortunately, the chores fell on the shoulders of Farish, Bill and Chuck. With a combined sixty years of field work behind them, they have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about conducting expeditions in a wide variety of conditions. But what experience could prepare us for the journey ahead? An experienced expedition leader once told me: nothing compares to your first trip to the Arctic.
Greenland team (clockwise from top left photo): Farish, military simplicity of uniform; Chuck, an experienced fossil hunter; Bill, who largely determines the success of the expedition; I, who made a lot of mistakes in that first year (just look at my hat).
During my first expedition to Greenland, I learned a lot, which was useful to me eleven years later when I started my own expedition to the Arctic. That first time I took with me to the land of slush, ice and eternal day leaky leather boots, a small old tent and a giant lantern, and in general I made so many mistakes that I smiled only when I repeated the motto I had invented: “Never do anything.” do it for the first time."
The most unpleasant episode of that expedition was associated with the choice of a place for camp: the decision had to be made quickly, right when we were inspecting the area from a helicopter. While the engine is running, the money, figuratively speaking, goes down the drain: the cost of renting a helicopter in the Arctic for an hour can reach three thousand dollars. With a paleontological expedition budget more geared toward a beat-up pickup truck than a Bell 212 helicopter, that means there's not a minute to waste. Finding ourselves over a place that, when studying the maps in the laboratory, seemed suitable for us to park, we quickly noted the elements that were important to us. There are a lot of them. You need a dry, flat area, located close to a water source, but at some distance from the sea to avoid encounters with polar bears. The site should be sheltered from the wind and located close to the rock outcrops that we are going to explore.
We had a good idea of the general layout of the area, having studied maps and aerial photographs, and so we found a wonderful little patch of tundra in the center of a wide valley. There were small channels here from which water could be taken. The place was dry and level, so we could easily set up our tents. In addition, from here there was a magnificent view of the ridge of snow-capped mountains and the glacier at the eastern end of the valley. But we soon realized our main mistake: there were no necessary rocks within walking distance.
After the camp was set up, we went out every day in search of stones. We climbed to the highest points of the area around the camp and tried to see through binoculars at least one of those rocky outcrops that literally caught our eye on the maps in the article that Bill and Chuck found. We were also guided by the fact that the stones - red sandstone - should have a characteristic color.
In search of red rocks, we left camp in pairs: Chuck and Farish climbed the hills to look for red rocks to the south, while Bill and I tried to see what was to the north. On the third day, both teams returned with the same news. About ten kilometers to the northeast a narrow reddish strip was visible. We spent the rest of the week discussing this exit and looking at it through binoculars. Sometimes, in the right light, it appeared to be a series of ridges, ideal for finding fossils.
It was decided that Bill and I would go to the stones. Since I had no idea what roads were like in the Arctic, I chose the wrong boots, and the trek turned out to be an ordeal: first we crossed fields of cobblestones, then small glaciers... but mostly we walked on mud. The liquid clay squelched obscenely every time we pulled our leg out of it. We left no traces.
For three days we searched for the road, but in the end we were able to find a reliable path to the desired stones. After a four-hour trek, the reddish strip visible from the camp through binoculars turned into a series of rocks, ridges and hills, consisting of the very stones we were looking for. If we're lucky, there might be fossils on the surface.
Now the task was to return here as quickly as possible with Farish and Chuck, reducing the transition time and saving maximum time for searching for fossils. When we returned as a team, Bill and I felt so proud, as if we were showing our guests a new home. Farish and Chuck, tired from the trek but excited by the anticipation of the search, did not even start the usual discussion. They methodically scanned the soil with their gaze.
Bill and I headed to a ridge about a kilometer away to see what awaited us further north. After a break, Bill began to look around in search of something interesting: our colleagues, bears or any other manifestations of life. Finally he said, “Chuck is down.” Taking out the binoculars, I actually saw Chuck crawling on all fours. To a paleontologist, this means only one thing: fossils.
We quickly walked there. Chuck actually found a piece of bone. However, our one-way hike lasted four hours, and now we were forced to return. Farish, Bill, Chuck and I were stretched out in a line about ten meters apart from each other. About five hundred meters later I saw something on the ground. This “something” shone with a familiar shine. Kneeling down as Chuck had done an hour ago, I saw it in all its glory: a wonderful piece of bone the size of a fist. There were other bones on the left, and more and more on the right. I called out to Farish, Bill and Chuck.
There was no answer. I looked around and realized why: they were also on all fours. We found ourselves in a field strewn with broken bones.
At the end of the summer we returned to the laboratory with boxes of fossils, which Bill began to assemble like a three-dimensional puzzle.
They were the bones of a creature about six meters long, with a row of flat, leaf-shaped teeth, a long neck and a small head. Judging by the anatomy of the limbs, it was a dinosaur, although not the largest.
Dinosaurs of this type, prosauropods, occupy an important place among paleontological finds in North America. In the eastern part of the continent, dinosaurs used to be found along rivers, highways and railways, that is, in places where rocks end up on the surface. The famous paleontologist Richard Swann Lull (1867–1957) of Yale University discovered the prosauropod in the quarries of Manchester, Connecticut. True, the stone block contained only the back part of the animal’s body. The saddened scientist learned that the block with the front section was included in the support of the bridge in South Manchester. Lull described only the back of the dinosaur. Only when the bridge was dismantled in 1969 were the remaining fragments also freed. Who knows what fossils are hidden in the depths of Manhattan? After all, the famous brown houses on the island are built from the same stones.
The hills of Greenland are formed by wide stone steps that not only tear up your boots, but can also tell you a lot about the origin of the stones. Hard layers of sandstone, almost as strong as concrete, emerge from beneath softer, brittle layers. Almost the same steps exist in the south: layers of sandstone, silt and shale stretch from North Carolina and Connecticut all the way to Greenland. These layers contain characteristic faults filled with sedimentary rocks. They indicate the location of ancient lakes in deep valleys that arose when the earth's crust cracked. The arrangement of ancient faults, volcanoes and lake sediments in these layers is almost the same as in the lakes of the modern East African Rift Valley (Victoria and Malawi): movement in the bowels of the Earth led to the splitting of areas of the surface, and rivers and lakes appeared in the resulting gaps. In the past, such rift chasms stretched along the coast of North America.
In search of fossils, we followed the “correct” rock formations (highlighted in black). Successful searches in Connecticut and Nova Scotia led us to Greenland.
Our plan from the beginning was to search along these cracks. Knowing that fossils of dinosaurs and small creatures close to mammals can be found in the rocks of eastern North America allowed us to appreciate the significance of that reprint of a geological paper that Chuck discovered. This in turn led us to northern Greenland. Then, already in Greenland, we continued to follow the same thread for finds, like pigeons mincing for crumbs of bread. The work took three years, but the clues we found in the redflowers eventually led Farish and me to that icy ridge.
From the top of the ridge our tents looked tiny. The wind was rustling overhead, but the ledge of pink limestone on which Farish and I were sitting provided shelter, so we could easily see the find. Farish's jubilation confirmed my suspicion that the white speck on the stone was indeed a mammal tooth. Three tubercles and two roots: this is exactly how it should look.
Encouraged by the find, we expanded our search to East Greenland and found other mammal remains in subsequent years. It was a small, shrew-like animal half the size of a house mouse. It may not have been an amazing skeleton that deserved a special place in the museum, but its value lay elsewhere.
This was the skeleton of one of the earliest fossil creatures with our type of teeth: their cutting surface is formed by tubercles that meet at the junction of the upper and lower teeth, and the row is divided into incisors, canines and molars. The animal's ear also resembles ours and contains small bones that connect the eardrum to the inner ear.
The shape of its skull, shoulders and limbs is also like that of mammals. It is likely that the animal had fur and other mammalian characteristics, such as mammary glands. When we chew, hear high-pitched sounds, or move our hands, we use parts of the skeleton that can be traced back to primates and other mammals back to the original structures of these small creatures that lived two hundred million years ago.
Stones also connect us with the past. Cracks in the earth - like the ones that led us to the fossilized remains of mammals in Greenland - have left their mark on our bodies. Greenland rocks are one page in a huge library that contains the history of our world. Before this little tooth appeared, the world had existed for billions of years, and two hundred million years have passed since its appearance. During this time, oceans appeared and disappeared on Earth, mountains rose and collapsed, and asteroids fell on Earth as it made its way through the solar system. Rock layers record changes in climate, atmosphere and crust over millions of years. Change is the normal order of things: bodies grow and die, species appear and disappear, every element and sign of our planet and Galaxy is subject to both sudden transformations and gradual changes.
Stones and bodies are “time capsules”, bearing the imprint of the great events that formed them. The molecules that make up our bodies arose as a result of cosmic events at the dawn of the solar system. Changes in the Earth's atmosphere have shaped our cells and our entire metabolism. Changes in the planet's orbit, the appearance of mountains and other revolutionary changes on the Earth itself - all this was reflected in our bodies, in our brains and in our perception of the world around us.
Like the life and history of our bodies, this book is structured along a timeline. Our story begins approximately 13.7 billion years ago, when the Big Bang created the Universe. Then we'll explore the history of our humble corner of the Universe and see what consequences the formation of the solar system, Earth and Moon had on our organs, cells and the genes they contain.
Historical site Bagheera - secrets of history, mysteries of the universe. Mysteries of great empires and ancient civilizations, the fate of disappeared treasures and biographies of people who changed the world, secrets of special services. The history of wars, mysteries of battles and battles, reconnaissance operations of the past and present. World traditions, modern life in Russia, the mysteries of the USSR, the main directions of culture and other related topics - everything that official history is silent about.
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The camp economy is sometimes called the “backbone” of Stalinist industrialization. What do the documents of those years indicate about this?
“Just as they took me as a wife and then kicked me out, so it will be in your monastery: he will never know peace, until the end of time they will either call him or drive him away!” - with these words, many centuries ago, Theodosia Solovaya (monastically Paraskeva), the rejected wife of Tsarevich Ivan, the eldest son of Ivan the Terrible, cursed the Ivanovo Monastery, imprisoned here. And her curse came true. Over the centuries, this monastery in the center of Moscow has repeatedly burned down, closed and been reborn again. However, the monastery became famous primarily for its mysterious prisoners who once languished within its walls.
After the historical Battle of Gaugamela, when Alexander the Great defeated the huge army of the Persian king Darius III, the powerful Achaemenid empire ceased to exist. It was replaced by other states ruled by the satraps (governors) of Alexander. This is exactly how the kingdom of Commagene appeared - a state that arose on the ruins of the Macedonian empire.
The GOELRO plan, implemented since 1921, brought the Soviet Union into industrialized powers. Symbols of this success were the Volkhovskaya HPP, which opened the list of large-scale construction projects, and the Dnieper HPP, the largest in Europe.
The history of the English warship "Bounty" was not lost even among the turbulent events of the 18th century. The mutiny raised on a sailing ship has become a source of inspiration not only for writers and directors, but also for modern copywriters and marketers. Thanks to the efforts of the latter, the sea voyage, full of drama, firmly merged in the public consciousness with heavenly pleasures. The ship's mutineers also dreamed about them at one time. But, alas, reality made its sad adjustments to their plans...
“We are against the American system, not against the people of America, whereas in these attacks (9/11) ordinary American people died. According to my information, the number of victims is much higher than what the US authorities stated... Isn't there a government within a government in the United States? This is a secret government and we need to ask who carried out these terrorist attacks?” (Osama bin Laden).
During her lifetime, Princess Diana became the idol of millions of people, a style icon and, as she was called, “the queen of people’s hearts.” Therefore, after her death, no one wanted to believe that Lady Di, as a mere mortal, became the victim of a banal accident. And this gave rise to numerous versions of her murder.
In the 30s of the last century, there was only one correct attitude towards the plan for the electrification of Russia. They say that GOELRO in its very essence was a project of the Leninist government, developed from scratch on the basis of shaggy savagery and devastation. But what can we take from purely propaganda times, when the loyalty of the people was much more important for the country, and not some inconvenient truth. But the truth about nationwide electrification was indeed inconvenient. After all, it is much older than the October initiatives. The first steps towards the widespread introduction of electric power were taken back in the “decadent” tsarist times.
Dedicated to Michelle, Nathaniel and Hannah
The universe Within
Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People
The “Elements” series was founded in 2007.
Translation from English
Ph.D. chem. Sciences Tatyana Mosolova
Publishing house AST. Moscow
The publication was supported by Dmitry Zimin’s Dynasty Foundation for Non-Commercial Programs
Artistic design and layout of the series by Andrey Bondarenko
© Neil Shubin, 2013
© T. Mosolova, translation into Russian, 2013
© A. Bondarenko, artistic design, layout, 2013
© AST Publishing House LLC, 2013
Publishing house CORPUS ®
Nonprofit Programs Fund
“ Dynasty ” founded in 2002 by Dmitry Borisovich Zimin, honorary president of VimpelCom. The Foundation's priority areas of activity are the development of fundamental science and education in Russia, the popularization of science and education. As part of the program to popularize science, the Foundation has launched several projects. Among them is the website elementy.ru, which has become one of the leading thematic resources on the Russian-language Internet, as well as the “Dynasty Library” project – a publication of modern popular science books carefully selected by scientific experts. The book you are holding in your hands was published as part of this project. More detailed information about the Dynasty Foundation can be found at www.dynastyfdn.ru.
I spend a significant part of my time looking at the rocks under my feet, and therefore I have developed a certain view of life and the Universe. I look for answers to questions that interest me about the origin of living organisms in the sands of deserts or in Arctic ice. This may seem strange to some, but those of my colleagues who peer into the light of distant stars and galaxies, draw maps of the ocean floor, or study the surface of the barren planets of the solar system are doing approximately the same thing. What unites our work are some of the most amazing ideas ever conceived by humanity—ideas about how we and our entire world came to be.
It was these ideas that inspired me to create my first book, “Inner Fish”. Every organ, every cell, every piece of DNA in our bodies bears traces of the three and a half billion years of life on Earth. This story has shaped the shape of our bodies, but clues to it can be found in the imprints of ancient worms on rocks, in the DNA of fish, and in the thick algae at the bottom of ponds.
As I thought about the first book, I realized that worms, fish, and algae point us to other, even deeper connections, going back billions of years to a time when no life existed on Earth. The birth of stars, the movement of celestial bodies and even the appearance of day and night have left traces within us.
Over the past 13.7 billion years, as a result of the Big Bang, the Universe arose, stars began to appear and disappear, and our planet was formed from cosmic matter. Since then, the Earth has tirelessly revolved around the Sun, and seas and continents have appeared and disappeared on it. Numerous discoveries of the last century have confirmed the multibillion-year history of the Earth, the immensity of space and the humble position of man on the tree of life. All this new knowledge can raise a legitimate question: is it really the task of scientists to make people feel like small, insignificant creatures in front of the infinity of space and time?
But aren't we discovering a stunningly beautiful truth by splitting tiny atoms and observing galaxies, studying rocks on the highest peaks and in the deepest ocean trenches, and examining the DNA of all living creatures today? Within each of us lives the deepest history of all things.
And everything started spinning
From a bird's eye view, my partner and I might have seemed like two black grains of sand stuck high on a slope among rocks, ice and snow. Our long route was coming to an end, and we were returning to camp, set up on a ridge sandwiched between the two largest ice sheets on the planet. Beneath the clear northern sky lay an expanse from the drifting ice of the Arctic in the east to the vast ice sheets of Greenland in the west. After a productive day and a long walk, we felt on top of the world when we saw this majestic sight.
However, suddenly the state of bliss came to an end, and all because the ground under my feet changed. We were crossing a strip of bedrock, and the brown sandstone gave way to a patch of pink limestone, which we knew was a sure sign that fossils might be found nearby. We had been looking at the boulders for several minutes when I noticed an unusual reflection coming from one of the melon-sized stones. My experience in the field taught me to listen to my inner voice. We came to Greenland to hunt for small fossils, so I got used to looking at rocks through a magnifying glass. It was a glittering white speck no larger than a sesame seed. I looked at the stone for a good five minutes, and then handed the find to Farish, my companion, to hear his authoritative opinion.
Farish froze, peering at the grain, and then looked at me with delight and amazement. Pulling off his gloves, he threw them high, about five meters, and squeezed me tightly in his arms.
Such an explosion of emotions distracted me from the absurdity of the situation: the discovery of a tooth the size of a grain of sand caused great delight! But we found what we had been looking for for three years, spending a lot of money, something that had repeatedly sprained ligaments in our legs: the missing link between reptiles and mammals, about two hundred million years old. Of course, our project was not limited to finding a single trophy. This little tooth is just one of the threads that connects us with antiquity. The Greenland rocks contain part of the forces that once shaped our bodies, our planet and even our Universe.
Finding connections with this ancient world is like discovering the original design in an optical illusion. We see people, stones and stars every day. But train your eyes - and familiar things will appear in front of you from an unusual perspective. If you learn to look at the world, then objects and stars will become for you a window into the past - so huge that it is almost beyond comprehension. In our common distant past, terrible disasters occurred, and they could not help but affect living beings.
How can a huge world be reflected in a small tooth or even in a human body?
I'll start by telling you how my colleagues and I first came to that mountain range in Greenland.
Imagine a valley stretching as far as the eye can see. And you're looking for fossils here the size of the period at the end of a sentence. The fossils and the vast valley are not comparable in size, but any valley will seem tiny in comparison with the surface of the Earth. Learning to look for traces of ancient life means learning to look at stones not as fixed objects, but as dynamic entities, often with an eventful history. This applies to our entire world, and to our bodies, which are a “snapshot” that captures a specific moment in time.